1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer program product, system, and method for using an alias volume name for a volume to allocate space to a data set.
2. Description of the Related Art
In certain computing environments, multiple host systems may configure data sets in volumes configured in a storage system, such as interconnected storage devices, e.g., a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD), etc. In the prior art, when extending a data set by adding an extent of data, where an extent comprise a range of tracks, extents are drawn from a new volume, even if volumes previously assigned to the data set now have more free space for assigning an additional extent to the data set. The reason for this limitation that data cannot re-extend back to a prior volume, not comprising the last assigned volume, is that the order of the data as written to the data set must be preserved. If data was allocated from a volume already assigned to the data set that is not the last volume from which data was allocated to the data set, then that data would be combined with data previously written from that prior volume during volume read activities, which will cause data to be read in an incorrect order. Thus, the different volume names allow for distinction of the order of data in the data set, and reusing a previous volume from which data was allocated could cause confusion as to the order for data read from that volume.
There is a need in the art for improved techniques to allocate data from a previously assigned volume to a data set.